systems and methods of managing consumables used in a bookbinding system are described. In one aspect, a bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator is configured to obtain information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system, and a processor is configured to compute usage statistics for the one or more bookbinding consumables based upon usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator.
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18. A method for managing bookbinding consumables, comprising:
obtaining information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system; and computing usage statistics for the one or more consumables in the bookbinding system based upon the usage information obtained, wherein the computed usage statistics include an average book size for books produced over a period of time.
16. A method for managing bookbinding consumables, comprising:
obtaining information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system; and computing usage statistics for the one or more consumables in the bookbinding system based upon the usage information obtained, wherein the computed usage statistics include an average production rate for books produced over a period of time.
12. An automated method performed by a bookbinding system to manage bookbinding consumables, comprising:
obtaining information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system, including a bookbinding adhesive; and computing usage statistics for the one or more consumables in the bookbinding system, including an indication of an amount of the bookbinding adhesive, based upon the usage information obtained.
19. An automated method performed by a bookbinding system to manage bookbinding consumables, comprising:
obtaining information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system; computing usage statistics for the one or more consumables in the bookbinding system based upon the usage information obtained; and computing adjustments for one or more consumable product configuration parameters based upon the obtained usage information.
17. An automated method performed by a bookbinding system to manage bookbinding consumables, comprising:
obtaining information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system; computing usage statistics for the one or more consumables in the bookbinding system based upon the usage information obtained; and computing adjustments for one or more operating parameters of the bookbinding system based upon the obtained usage information.
20. A method for managing bookbinding consumables, comprising:
obtaining information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system, wherein the obtained usage information includes an indication of a length of solid sheet adhesive remaining within a plug-in cartridge housing of an adhesive dispenser disposed within a receptacle of the bookbinding system; and computing usage statistics for the one or more consumables in the bookbinding system based upon the usage information obtained.
1. A system for managing bookbinding consumables, comprising:
a bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator configured to obtain information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system, including a bookbinding adhesive; and a processor coupled to the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator and configured to compute usage statistics for the one or more consumables in the bookbinding system, including an indication of an amount of the bookbinding adhesive, based upon usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator.
8. A system for managing bookbinding consumables, comprising:
a bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator configured to obtain information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system; and a processor coupled to the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator and configured to compute usage statistics for the one or more consumables in the bookbinding system based upon usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator, wherein the processor is configured to compute an average book size for books produced over a period of time.
9. A system for managing bookbinding consumables, comprising:
a bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator configured to obtain information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system; and a processor coupled to the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator and configured to compute usage statistics for the one or more consumables in the bookbinding system based upon usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator, wherein the processor is configured to compute an average production rate for books produced over a period of time.
10. A system for managing bookbinding consumables, comprising:
a bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator configured to obtain information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system; and a processor coupled to the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator and configured to compute usage statistics for the one or more consumables in the bookbinding system based upon usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator, wherein the processor is configured to compute adjustments for one or more operating parameters of the bookbinding system based upon usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator.
11. A system for managing bookbinding consumables, comprising:
a bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator configured to obtain information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system; and a processor coupled to the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator and configured to compute usage statistics for the one or more consumables in the bookbinding system based upon usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator, wherein the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator is configured to obtain an indication of a length of solid sheet adhesive remaining within a plug-in cartridge housing of an adhesive dispenser disposed within a receptacle of the bookbinding system.
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This application is related to U.S. application Ser. No. 09/837,648, filed on Apr. 18, 2001, by Akinobu Kuramoto et al., and entitled "Determining When Adhesive in a Replaceable Adhesive Dispenser is Nearly Spent," which is incorporated herein by reference. This application also is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/721,549, filed Nov. 24, 2000, by Robert L. Cobene et al., and entitled "SYSTEMS AND METHODS OF ATTACHING A COVER TO A TEXT BODY," and to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/776,251, filed Feb. 3, 2001, by Robert L. Cobene et al., and entitled "SYSTEMS AND METHODS OF BINDING A TEXT BODY," both of which are incorporated herein by reference.
This invention relates to systems and methods for managing bookbinding consumables.
Today, a variety of different bookbinding systems can deliver professionally bound documents, including books, manuals, publications, annual reports, newsletters, business plans, and brochures. A bookbinding system generally may be classified as a commercial (or trade) bookbinding system that is designed for in-line manufacturing of high quality volume runs or an in-house (or office) bookbinding system designed for short "on-demand" runs. Commercial bookbinding systems generally provide a wide variety of binding capabilities, but require large production runs (e.g., on the order of thousands of bindings) to offset the set-up cost of each production run and to support the necessary investment in expensive in-line production equipment. Office bookbinding systems, on the other hand, generally involve manual intervention and provide relatively few binding capabilities, but are significantly less expensive to set up and operate than commercial bookbinding systems, even for short on-demand production runs of only a few books.
In general, a bookbinding system collects a plurality of sheets (or pages) into a text body (or book block) that includes a spine and two side hinge areas. The bookbinding system applies an adhesive to the text body spine to bind the sheets together. A cover may be attached to the bound text body by applying an adhesive to the side hinge areas or the spine of the text body, or both. The cover of a typical commercial soft cover book generally is attached to the text body spine. The covers of hardcover books and some soft cover "lay flat" books, on the other hand, typically are attached to the side hinge areas of the text body and are not attached to the text body spines (i.e., the spines are "floating").
The invention features systems and methods of managing consumables used in a bookbinding system.
In one aspect of the invention, a bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator is configured to obtain information relating to usage of one or more consumables in a bookbinding system, and a processor is configured to compute usage statistics for the one or more bookbinding consumables based upon usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator.
Embodiments of the invention may include one or more of the following features.
The processor preferably is configured to compute estimates of inventory levels for one or more consumables based upon usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator. The processor may be configured to place an order with a remote consumables supplier based upon the computed inventory level estimates.
The processor may be configured to compute an average book size for books produced over a period of time or an average production rate for books produced over a period of time, or both. In some embodiments, the processor is configured to compute adjustments for one or more operating parameters of the bookbinding system based upon usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator. The processor also may be configured to compute adjustments for one or more consumable product configuration parameters based upon the obtained usage information.
The processor may be disposed at a location remote from the bookbinding system and may be coupled to the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator by a communication link. The processor may be configured to transmit the computed usage statistics to a display.
A memory device may be configured to store usage information obtained by the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator. The memory device may be mounted to a consumable plug-in cartridge housing. In one embodiment, the bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator is configured to obtain an indication of a length of solid sheet adhesive remaining within a plug-in cartridge housing of an adhesive dispenser disposed within a receptacle of the bookbinding system.
Other features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description, including the drawings and the claims.
In the following description, like reference numbers are used to identify like elements. Furthermore, the drawings are intended to illustrate major features of exemplary embodiments in a diagrammatic manner. The drawings are not intended to depict every feature of actual embodiments nor relative dimensions of the depicted elements, and are not drawn to scale.
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
As used herein, "pressure sensitive adhesives" refer to a class of adhesive compositions that are applied with pressure and generally do not undergo a liquid to solid transition in order to hold materials together. Pressure sensitive adhesives may be solvent-free natural or synthetic resins characterized by the rapid wetting of a surface to form an adhesive bond upon contact with the surface under pressure.
As explained in detail below, in some embodiments, the respective cartridge housings for the solid hot melt sheet adhesive and the pressure sensitive adhesive tape are configured to plug into respective receptacles in bookbinder 22 of finisher 14. In these embodiments, bookbinder 22 may be configured to obtain automatically an indication of the length of solid sheet adhesives remaining within each of the plug-in cartridge housings. Bookbinder 22 also may be configured to replace automatically an exhausted adhesive dispenser with a new adhesive dispenser of an adhesive stack that has been loaded into bookbinder 22 based upon a signal received from a sensor. After each of the loaded adhesive dispensers has been exhausted, bookbinder 22 may display a notice indicating that another adhesive dispenser stack should be loaded into the system.
Referring to
Referring to
Sensor 84 may obtain an indication of the length of solid sheet adhesive 74 dispensed from cartridge housing 72 directly, for example, by reading a rotary encoder that is coupled to the adhesive dispensing drive mechanism, or indirectly, for example, by obtaining a measurement of separation between clamps holding text body 24 while the text body sheets are being bound together by hot melt adhesive.
Additional systems and methods of obtaining an indication of the length of solid sheet adhesive dispensed from cartridge housing 72 may be obtained from U.S. application Ser. No. 09/837,648, filed Apr. 18, 2001, by Akinobu Kuramoto et al., and entitled "Determining When Adhesive in a Replaceable Adhesive Dispenser is Nearly Spent."
As mentioned above, in addition to monitoring the quantity of a consumable remaining within a replaceable consumable dispenser, a bookbinding consumables manager may be provided to compute certain usage statistics for one or more of the consumables in the bookbinding system.
Referring to
In one mode of operation the usage statistics computed by bookbinding consumables manager 94 may be used to provide just-in-time (JIT) inventory control to enable inventory carrying costs and downtime caused by exhaustion of consumables stocks to be reduced. In addition, by avoiding unexpected downtime due to the exhaustion of consumables stocks, replacement costs also may be reduced (e.g., expedited delivery charges for exhausted consumables may be avoided).
In general, in this mode of operation, bookbinding consumables manager 94 is configured to determine when the consumables should be re-ordered to cover usage needs based upon to an estimate of the mean usage (μU) of a consumable and an estimated mean lead (or replenishment) time (μL) for the consumable. In some embodiments, bookbinding consumables manager 94 also is configured to implement an inventory control strategy that accommodates uncertainty in usage or lead time, or both. For a variety of reasons (e.g., changes in product life cycles, seasonal variations in demand, and changing economic conditions), future consumables usage patterns are uncertain, and the times at which re-ordered consumables and other components will be received from suppliers are uncertain. To handle such uncertainty, many different statistical models have been proposed to determine the appropriate inventory levels (i.e., safety stock) to hold to meet target service level requirements. Conventionally, safety stock levels may be estimated based upon the average lead time, the variance in the lead time, the average usage rate, and the variance in the usage rate (see, e.g., EDWARD A. SILVER & REIN PETERSON, DECISION SYSTEMS FOR INVENTORY MANAGEMENT AND PRODUCTION PLANNING (1985)).
The mean consumable usage (μU) may be computed based upon a determination of the amount of consumable used over a selected period. This determination may be made directly based upon the amount of consumable dispensed or indirectly based upon the number and size of books produced by bookbinding system 10. The estimated mean lead time (μL) and estimated lead time standard deviation (σL) may be set by a bookbinding consumables asset manager. In some embodiments, these parameters may be set dynamically to reflect current information about supplier or market conditions.
In general, bookbinding consumables customers and bookbinding consumables suppliers may communicate order requests and order confirmations over a global communication network. In addition, customers may manage supplies of consumables from a remote access node through a communication link established over the global communication network. The global communication network may include a number of different computing platforms and transport facilities, including a voice network, a wireless network and a computer network (e.g., the Internet). The order requests and order confirmations transmitted between the customer site and the consumables supplier may be presented in a number of different media formats, such as voice, Internet, e-mail and wireless formats. In addition, the transmissions between the customer site, the consumables supplier and the remote access node may be conducted in accordance with one or more conventional secure transmission protocols. For example, each transmission may involve packaging a communication, including any associated meta-data, into an encrypted transfer file that may be transmitted securely from one entity to another.
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In any of the above-described embodiments, bookbinding consumables manager 94 also may be configured to compute adjustments to one or more consumable product configuration parameters based upon the usage information obtained from consumables interrogator 92. For example, based upon the usage statistics computed for a number of different customers, the consumables supplier may determine that the unit size of one or more consumable products should be changed, or that more than one unit size of a particular consumable product should be produced and offered to customers for purchase. Other product configuration adjustments may be made in accordance with any of a wide variety of different marketing models.
In another mode of operation, bookbinding consumables manager 94 may be configured to compute adjustments to one or more operating parameters for bookbinder 22 based upon the usage information obtained by bookbinding consumables quantity interrogator 92. For example, certain operating parameters (e.g., the length of the cooling period after the hot melt adhesive has been applied to the spine area of text body 24) may be adjusted based upon a computed average book size produced by bookbinder 22 (i.e., the length of the cooling period may be adjusted to track the computed average book size). In this way, operating parameters may be tailored for each customer so that the operating efficiency of bookbinding system 10 may be optimized. By this approach, the production times for producers of small books may be reduced automatically based upon their usage patterns. In this mode of operation, the operating parameter adjustments may be transmitted from bookbinding consumables manager 94 over a local node connection or over a global communication network connection, or both.
The systems and methods described herein are not limited to any particular hardware or software configuration, but rather they may be implemented in any computing or processing environment, including in digital electronic circuitry or in computer hardware, firmware or software. The bookbinding consumables manager and bookbinding controller modules may be implemented, in part, in a computer program product tangibly embodied in a machine-readable storage device for execution by a computer processor. In some embodiments, the bookbinding consumables manager and bookbinding controller modules preferably are implemented in a high level procedural or object oriented programming language; however, the algorithms may be implemented in assembly or machine language, if desired. In any case, the programming language may be a compiled or interpreted language. The bookbinding consumables manager and bookbinding controller methods described herein may be performed by a computer processor executing instructions organized, e.g., into program modules to carry out these methods by operating on input data and generating output. Suitable processors include, e.g., both general and special purpose microprocessors. Generally, a processor receives instructions and data from a read-only memory and/or a random access memory. Storage devices suitable for tangibly embodying computer program instructions include all forms of non-volatile memory, including, for example, semiconductor memory devices, such as EPROM, EEPROM, and flash memory devices; magnetic disks such as internal hard disks and removable disks; magneto-optical disks; and CD-ROM. Any of the foregoing technologies may be supplemented by or incorporated in specially-designed ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits).
Other embodiments are within the scope of the claims.
For example, in addition, to managing bookbinding consumables, the systems and methods described above may be used to manage the replacement of component parts of bookbinding system 10.
Still other embodiments are within the scope of the claims.
Ertel, John P., Kuramoto, Akinobu, Cobene, Robert L.
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